Register to vote, Where to vote, Eat Pie

Here's where to go for Where's My Pierce County Voting Place Dude...and I need to change my address/register to vote.....links. Please notice that the WA website at the Secty of State page has a nice big graphic for online voting needs.............But...It took me more than 3 minutes to find Pierce county's website link, from the home page of P.County........ just to Get my polling place address...but I'd like to take this moment to remind you that Pierce County begins with Pie........yummmy!

hey Webmaster....Why'd ya hide the link......Once you get to the Pierce county voting page....I got there by putting "vote" in the search box from the main page, & then I got a long list of polling places, but over on the upper right hand side is the link to find your place. It's convoluted, and mappy.....so geeky. If you are old, and don't do computers, good luck finding it. Hey, not everyone is a 29 year old whiz kid. This technology is not friendly to those of us who are um, old school. Chew on dat, Chew on Dat.

Official Autumn Time....

The air is clear...the leaves are brittle jewels ....and pumpkins and chrysanthemums glow.....my favorite time of year.....Fall clothes...Halloweeeeeen !
Much new stuff in the shop.....for your body, for the upcoming holiday.....
and for your home.....

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Spend Local, Ink Focal

Yup this is what gals in their 50s do for fun!....here's some shots of me n Polly in Dreamer's Chant Tattoo.....


when the email slide comes up just click the little X on the top right side.

The prettiest Kimono.....

Found in a local estate.....I don't know how it got to Tacoma...I don't know the story.....

What Tacoman was in Japan in the 20s? A sailor? A merchant? A tourist?

Now on ebay........

Silk Floral Flapper 20s Taisho Romance Art Deco Kimono

Beautiful bright colors of hot pink, golden chartreuse, cornflower blue and black in a floral and foliage design. Taisho Romance style.

When looking at Japan’s long history, it’s easy to consider the brief 14 years of the Taisho period (1912-26) as a mere footnote. The emperor, Yoshihito, did not play an active role due to a lifetime of ill health. Yet during his brief reign, he sat as figurehead of a country reeling between the onslaught of foreign influences during the Meiji period and the radical conservatism and patriotic fervor that grew before World War II. In fact, the Taisho period was a fascinating and pivotal time,
an amalgam of contradictory social forces of East and West that saw the Japanese question their self-identity. Much of this was poignantly reflected in the lifestyles, fashion and arts of the time.
http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/687/art.asp

on ebay

click 70s chick to take you to ebay

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Funkoma Vintage....712 Broadway

daily -- noon to 7(ish)

What's new in the shop?
Tons! Long Angel wing 70s dress,
Mini Trench coat, Cocoa puffs coat, Adidas, bow blouse, vests, High waist jeans, Sailor jeans, plaid pants, kitchen mixers, woodsy owl and wildlife print dress,
boots boots boots, tiger coat, leopard coat, fluffy faux fur jacket, big crinolines, Prom and Party dresses….and vintage vinyl, bikes…….and more more more……..

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Arrrgh ! Talk Like A Pirate Day......

hey matey.....funkoma can never be too Pirate...so she celebrates Talk Like A Pirate Day by getting a new tattoo......at Dreamer's Chant Tattoo....





Last night, September's 3rd Thursday Artwalk,

Avast !!!!

t' music was great.....ye Folksingers In Hell

sang smartly about fancy yuppies and drug addicts Shanghai'd in New Tacoma.......ye Bilge rats that didn't crawl outa yer smelly bunks...

ye missed the Grog and the fine snackies.....Don't worry ye scurvy dogs.....and wharf rats.....ye favorite pirates on Broadway be puttin' on

another fine revue......hopin' David & Heidi will lower their standards and play for ye again............Arrrrr!!!

this has little to do with Pirates or Folksingers In Hell...I just like it......

funkoma/amocat + folksingers in hell

a repost of a post...bloggy style.....
so you blog, eh? Wish you had your own Tacoma-Centric theme song?
David Fewster has answered your call of anguish.....we know you labor in the dark....clickity everyday.....and BONUS.....he homages our beloved Exit133.......It does not get any cooler..any more Tacoma than that......
Clicky the YouTube linky and listen to David sing.....and his daughter Hannah blog.....with whiteout.....it's all very chiaroscuro.......

David Fewster and song partner Heidi Fosner are the most exciting and gritty...Tacoma doomish-cheerleaders.....if you love Tacoma, you can not call your self, your bad self a real life Tacoman or Tacomawoman.....or Tacomakid until you've listened to Folksingers In Hell.....
Just as you love Teddy and bro Leonard Haggerty, artists and karaoke entrepreneurs....extraordinaire.....who have brought Tacoma to life in scratch paper and song.......these folks are the real deal........
No faux-urban pioneers....you know.......the kind that are more Fit than Grit......
Folksingers In Hell are not Sanitized For Your Protection!
Though mostly child-safe......
And Fewster and Heidi sing of our dysfunctional families, drug rehab blues..sans ciggies...at St. Joes..........
So get busy......
Do you truck up to Frost Park to see/be/do The Big Chalk Off every Friday noonish?
I bet you do....
So don't be a Tacoma poseur....
This is the real thing.....Like Girl Trouble........
You chose Tacoma because it isn't pretentious and the real estate prices are doable....
Folksingers In Hell and Fewster and Spawn are both unpretentious and quite doable!!!
Maybe you saw them at First Night 2008.........
Maybe you saw them at the recent Train Fest.......
So see them now....Leave a comment.... Support the Local Arts..
GO LOCAL....
.....brought to your attention by.......a ......Tacoma blog.....

Summer at the beach

Sunday September Fourteenth on a sunny summer afternoon, Mark & I went to Titlow beach and hung out .....



till the tide came in.....

Free Fun, 712 Broadway, Free Music, Artwalk.....

A Tacoma Train T Shirt and Me !

The world is awash....in T shirts.....The world is choked with T shirts.....we must control them.....we must subdue and make them do what we say ! I love to cut them up into other stuff.....

So here we have a simple re-construct to do on 2 t shirts......I have a black T shirt I really like but for the silly mass-produced thingie in the middle of the chest. My Tacoma Train T shirt is one of my faves....so, let's combine the 2 ........

So first cut the center part out of the black one, and use that for the pattern for the white one......uh, measure well.....so that your insert will fit in the "original T"........



then sew the center part to the "original T"....careful pinning or even basting is essential here at this step.....ya wanna make sure your t shirts line up at the hemlines.....you will be cutting them to a nice pleasing shape.....and adding some lace.......



Ok, side inserts sewn in.........now is the time to make a pleasing curve for a neckline.....and the hem can be altered with the same treatment or more fun edgings...you know me....I'll be back with more fun stuff to torture the unsuspecting simple t shirt........
When you add some stretchy lingerie lace to a neckline, if it's a knit there is a simple rule.......
Measure the neckline without stretching, and cut your stretchy lace without stretching to be the same length but for 1 inch. In other words, cut the lace one inch shorter than your neckline measurement. This shortening of the lace will pull the neckline to lay flat against your body as it stretches along the neckline of the t shirt.
Begin pinning the lace at a shoulder seam....or at the center back of the neckline...whichever you choose, and pin the center of the lace to the center front of the t shirt's neckline, then evenly stretch and distribute the lace around the neckline. When you sew it, use a simple tiny zigzag, or if you have a fancy-schmancy machine with stretch stitches.....now is the time to Show Off!
Here we go.....Simple, reconstructed.....and it goes fast girlfriend.......

I Want me a Deadhead for Obama sticker.....

So I'll be stopping in at TacomaObama headquarters.....to get me some stickers and sign up for some ObamaWork...
Meanwhile, I want this:


But I did find this:

and I really like this:

edit---sept 14....the above sticker is available thru CafePress......and uh, word up John+Sarah....an election campaign IS Community Organizing...It is exactly what the Founding Fathers/Mothers of these United States did (to the indigenous but that's another post)...so...end edit........
Why would anyone denigrate Community Organizing? Are they against Democracy?
I can't believe anyone with a brain would vote for McCain/Palin. Have you completely lost your mind?

I wish I had staff like Jon Stewart !!

Because catching folks talking out both sides of their mouths.......is really fun!!

More Feminist Than You

Republicans love a Work-A-Holic! Great for the bottom line. That's really why Palin was chosen.....and her Girl Parts really sticks it to Hillary...this is the Repubs big FU...to her.
What's more hard-working than a Mother with a Job outside the home? A migrant worker? A prisoner on the chain gang?

When you have children you have a choice, mostly. Stay home, mostly, and actually raise your own children. Or, work part-time and farm out the parenting to a (you hope) lovely and wonderful person who can be as good as you are at least for the time you are working or whatever. Or, work full-time and farm out 75% of parenting.
Let's complicate the matter even more. A special needs child. OK. 2 special needs children.
One infant with Downs and one pregnant teenager.
Say what you will, and it will all be said, one child is hard enough, 5 is a small baseball team.

So.....Repubs love to seduce you and guilt you with the image of the Perfect Mother....Stay At Home and raise children.....OH WAIT !!!!
That may or may not be the Repubs current image of the Perfect Mother anymore. The Perfect Mother works ! It's good for the economy because a working mother needs pantyhose, a working wardrobe, Starbucks, lunches out, and lots and lots of Guilt purchases for the children a working mother never gets to see often enough.
I have 3 kids. I know a lot about working and juggling.
I also worked all my life.....I'm working class. I only finished my degree at age 51 !

So...as a working mother, I put my family's needs before my own. I did not think about my own self-interest much, I certainly didn't think my employers needs came before my kids. Employers hate that!
I breast-fed. Oh sure you can pump and juggle, but at the end of the day, working full time with a breast-feeding infant is just short of crazy.
What she gonna do? Stump and Pump?

I became self-employed mostly because it was best for my family.
What choices does Sarah Palin have? Surely she isn't really raising her own children. Someone else is doing that. And that may be alright. But, it is a physical fact. She isn't doing much mothering.
Oh sure, I've heard it all. Quality over quantity is the buzz phrase right?
Deep down, most mothers know that's a lie.
There's a reason why women have these dilemmas. Estrogen. The Human Condition. We are made this way by selection, because the children who receive the most attention from their parents are the children who do best in life.
We don't ask how will Obama parent and run the country.....He's already got his priorities in order. He has a parent who will step in for all the essential parenting needed while he is saving the world from hard-working Repubs. Sarah Palin has a husband who clearly hasn't been around much. And doing what kind of parenting? He seems great at making the babies....not so much on actually raising the babies.

Money can "buy" a lot of things. They can make working mothers feel better about the fact they aren't raising their children. Someone else is. Maybe this is best for the kids....after all.

So, Sarah Palin is the New Perfect Mother. She has a lot of Kids. She has works full time. She is a pro-life Repub. She works at least 2 jobs. She's a she. She's Perfect....and now you will be held to this higher standard.
It isn't good enough anymore to be a mom. Now it's "normal" to have a job too. Another job, too.
Hurrah!!! Feminists Win!!! the social revolution.

And it's pretty funny now to see the Repubs go All Feminist after years of Ms.-Hating....Phyllis Schlafly anyone? Hardly anyone told women to get barefoot and pregnant more often than Phyllis, while she had 6 children and a law degree and a full-time career!! Talk about hypocrisy!!

But let's chat about a Pregnant Teenager.
Surely, Palin is a failure there! It is never a good idea for a teenager to get pregnant. Please click here and read an article that I'd have written, but for the fact I really do Have to work.....and I have no time to do all the research that backs up my/her argument.
And my position is that if you really care about your daughters and sons, you will not let them get pregnant too soon. A pregnant teenager is an admission of failure in the parenting department. It sentences a girl and often a young man to a lifetime of poverty and diminished dreams. And that hurts us all.
Someone who can't even pull off great parenting with money to play with, is a terrible example of parenting. It's not Ooopps!
But even this will "play" to those families that have had to endure a pregnant teenager. Kinda sad and funny, how such a human failure is now somehow magically qualified to be the Leader of the Free World!
The messiest part of the Palin family saga is that the poor teenager will have to play out her life in the public arena.
Even if Bristol wanted to get an abortion, how could she now? If she wanted to give the baby up for adoption, how can she? She is her mother's pawn. Bristol has to do what's best for her mother. Bristol doesn't get to make her own decision. What does Bristol want? We'll never really know.

Here in Pierce County, pregnancy rates for 15-17 yr. olds is on a downward trend.
It simply is a fact that, "...unintended pregnancy is associated with a number of detrimental risks and poor health outcomes......greater risk of infant mortality, and increased risk of the child being abused or neglected....."
If Palin was a competent mother and a competent manager she would decline the offer of Veep.
She already has a job or 5 or 6 or 7 !
Enough! Why is stretching a family past its limits a Good Thing? Is it good for the economy? A cancer cell and a pro-development capitalist have the same ideology. Growth for growth's sake.
But like I said, Repubs love a hard worker. Even if we all have to suffer for it.